Adelante/February 13 2005

from the Macalester Public Knowledge Base

Present: Alex Buck, Julie Kaster, Alex Flores, Vincent Garcia, Carmen Phillips, Simon Cecil, Yongho Kim

Contents 1 Presentation: MEChA as a legitimate political entity 2 Budget approvals: Don Quixote, Chiapas Media Project 3 In The Kitchen With Feb 22 4 Next meeting: Honduras presentation

[edit] Presentation: MEChA as a legitimate political entity

• Alex Flores presented the basics of MEChA, based in his last semester's Latina/o Studies course research.
• group read definitions of chicano and Aztlán prepared by Alex
• Alex wrote the paper in response to a criticism directed by Dave (?), who claimed MEChA was a radical, nationalist and racist political organization that seeks to benefit only chicanos and intends to take over the state (?).
• The way MEChA is portrayed in the media or the likes of Dave (?) is not true.
• Dave directs his criticism to El plan espiritual de Aztlán , a document considered to be the foundation of the general chicano movement, but not the founding document of MEChA, which is La Declaracion de Santa Bárbaba, a more moderate document. Even so, El plan espiritual de Aztlán needs to be carefuly examined and interpreted just as the U.S. constitution is studied, and there is nothing contrary to the state in that document.
• It is not true that MEChA is a racist organization. It has cooperated with asian americans and african americans, fighting de facto segregation in California and the southern states. It is a west coast equal of the SNCC (Students for No Violence Coordination Committee?)
• The main goal of MEChA was to lobby state legislators to fight segregation and to establish Chicano Studies as an academic department in universities.
• Furthermore, the bulk of those who criticize MEChA as a "racist" organization, at the same time engaging in the support of racist and immigrophobic legislations, such as Proposition 187, 200, (...others..) in CA, which all seek to increase segregation, deny basic rights to immigrants, etc, so who's the racist here?

AFLO, please feel free to make this larger or correct for mistakes. Also, if you wanted to, we could post your paper here. For that, click here and copy & paste your paper there. I can help you with formatting once you put it up. --141.140.120.117 21:32, 13 Feb 2005 (CST)

[edit] Budget approvals: Don Quixote, Chiapas Media Project

• group decides to request the following additional allocations to MCSG:
  • 150 for a Don Quixote play by Héctor, which is also supported by Latin American Studies and [Lealtad-Suzuki Center]]
  • 400 for Chiapas Media Project
  • group shows hesitation at making a request for both packets.
  • AFLO worries that MCSG might not pass all of that money together. He proposes making one request a week.
  • Yongho argues that $550 is not that much money anyways, and proposes putting it all together.

[edit] In The Kitchen With Feb 22

• Maribel and AFLO will cook (?)
• we might need more than $50
• Yongho proposes redirecting $50 from the org dinner towards the ITKW.
• Julie Kaster offers to provide transportation (her car) so that Maribel can go buy the ingredients over the weekend.

[edit] Next meeting: Honduras presentation

• at the next meeting on Sunday 20th, Alex Buck (and her group?) will present on their j-term tript to Honduras using powerpoint. She will borrow a projector from MEdia Services and do this at the C-house.
• since we did not have time to play the board game today, we'll do so after the honduras presentation. Maribel is keeping the game.